Haql

The Georgios G sits in shallow turquoise water just metres from the shore, its hull rusted to the colour of dried blood, its deck listing at an angle that nature is slowly correcting. The Gulf of Aqaba stretches north beyond the wreck, narrow and deep, with the mountains of Sinai visible on the Egyptian shore opposite. The beach around it is quiet — sand, salt air, and the slow disintegration of a cargo ship that ran aground decades ago.

Haql is a small town on Saudi Arabia's northwest coast, where the Gulf of Aqaba narrows to its most slender point before opening into the Red Sea. The beached wreck of the Georgios G — a cargo ship that ran aground on the reef — has become the town's unlikely landmark, photogenic in its decay against the turquoise shallows; it is a thing to photograph from the sand, not to board. Beyond the wreck, the Gulf of Aqaba offers some of the best diving on the Saudi coast, with deep walls, clear water, and coral reachable through local licensed operators. The strait is narrow enough that Egypt's Sinai Peninsula is visible from the beach, and the mountains on both sides create a landscape that feels more Mediterranean than Arabian.